Messages

191

General Mach Discussion / VFD and noise questions

« on: August 31, 2008, 07:19:18 PM »

I have three machines between 2 and 15 HP all running VFD and three phase spindle motors , all have the vfd mounted in the same cabinet with my breakout boards relays , amplifiers etc with no problems.

I am finaly finished with my big MHP 30hp lathe (THANKS HOOD) , the last thing to do was wire the VFD to the breakout board so mach can control speed direction etc.  The VFD on this one is mounted on the wall aprox 6 feet from the machine and everything has been working perfectly before hooking up the control wire . Walk over push the start/stop buttons etc no interference.

I have run a sheilded cable from the VFD to the breakout board consisting of one wire from the analog out on my breakout board , two wires +- from the vfd power supply to the breakout board and three wires from the vfd for direction , common and fw/rv . Both ends of the sheild are grounded , tryed it both grounded and ungrounded.

Now the instant I switch the spindle on with either m3 or m4 it spins breifly and I get an estop and the watchdog triggered message.  In General config the debounce and index (?) settings were set at 200 for the top one and 4 for the lower one. At those settings the spindle will spin up for almost 10 seconds before going into estop . I have adjusted the numbers up and down with out any better results.

If I disable the watchdog in gen config I can power up the spindle but everything on screen freezes , cant move the mouse , hae to hit the physical estop and once the spindle winds down everything is fine , While the spindle is running I can walk over and turn the vfd off by using the stop button on its control panel , it stops as it should but Mach is still frozen until I hit estop .

Any thoughts on how to solve this problem greatly appreciated,  should I possibly not be using the 10v power supply in the VFD for the analog output on my breakout board? on all the others I am using a seperate power supply , this 30 hp vfd had a power supply built in .

192

General Mach Discussion / Re: SImple tool offset procedure

« on: August 30, 2008, 01:57:43 PM »

Thanks we're using tool holders in a fullsize milling machine and I fully understand the offsets etc , we were just having a problem figuring out which sequence of the dozens of buttons to push to get it to properly enter the offset data in the tool table .

My commercial mill (milltronics) has one button on the tool setup page and is pretty much idiot proof. You touch off on your gauge block with the refrence tool, zero the machine . Touch off with the tool you want to set , push the tool set button and it automaticly enters the offset , ask the diameter, hit enter and your done, m6t* to call up the next tool , touch the gauge block , click the only button that exist , enter the diam and so on.
The tool offset screen in mach just has so many buttons , bells and whistles that it confuses those of use used to the idiot proof centroid, fanuc and milltronics controllers.

I see now there are a simple squence of buttons to push to acheive the same thing, just didnt jump out at us initialy.

193

SmoothStepper USB / Re: My Lathe with the SmoothStepper

« on: August 29, 2008, 09:13:04 PM »

sounds good, I would be happy with just the index pulse . I am currently using the electronic gearing which smoothe stepper would allow me to get away from .

I am running the latest mach on the lathe and havent noticed any problems, anything I should be watching out for on the lathe?

194

SmoothStepper USB / Re: My Lathe with the SmoothStepper

« on: August 29, 2008, 08:00:07 PM »

has the spindle encoder input been activated yet?

195

General Mach Discussion / Re: SImple tool offset procedure

« on: August 29, 2008, 07:52:37 PM »

Much thanks , I have been doing the hard way and my Dad is now working with this machine a little and we thought it would be nice to learn as many of the little ins and outs as possible

196

General Mach Discussion / Re: SImple tool offset procedure

« on: August 29, 2008, 12:07:38 PM »

beuler? bueler?  I am guessing this is so simple it doesnt need an explanation but could some one post a link or page # in the manual explaning this ?   Thanks

197

General Mach Discussion / SImple tool offset procedure

« on: August 28, 2008, 12:12:20 PM »

Could someone give the simple run down on setting tool offset in mach3 mill.
I am using the blue mill screen set and I am sure from the offset page its a simple procedure.
I am not using any tool setters , probes . I Have a refrence tool set as tool one and would like to touch off on the feeler gauge on a block of aluminum in the vice , then use the same method to set the length offset of each tool I add to the library.   

Is there a simple method of changing the tool number, jogging to my feeler gauge and then pressing a magic button to enter the data in the tool library?

Once I build my tool library which file do I need to back up ?
Thanks Richard

198

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Strange issue since installing SS

« on: August 23, 2008, 10:29:29 PM »

Hi Greg , Both times I the problem has developed its been when I change the freq on the SS config page for the X-axis. The first time the error was 70 steps . We generated a new profile and the problem was solved.

This time all I did was changed the freq from 32k to 64k and the error is 20 steps. It didnt affect any  of the other axis either time, although I changed the freq on the y and z axis also both times.

The error only adds .0015 (20 steps) one time.  When I start at x0 and call out x 10 , the machine moves to x10.0015 when I then call out x12. the machine moves to x12.0015 and so on , when I call out x 0 it moves back to x0.0015  .  To get back to x 0 I have to type in x-.0015 .

The other error message developed when I unplugged the USB plug from the SS board. I did try unplugging/replugging a few times as well as rebooting the computer . I powered down the comp and unlugged the SS board over night and havent seen that message again .

I was able to create a new profile this morning and the extra 20 step issue went away so its not really an issue , could very well just be some fluke with my comp etc. I have three lathes waiting on the spindle encoder input to be active so I would say skip this little one off issue and focus  on important stuff/

Thanks Richard

199

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Strange issue since installing SS

« on: August 23, 2008, 06:31:18 PM »

played with this quite a bit today after the power came back on , not sure why but any time I change the x axis freq on the smooth stepper setup page I have to make a new profile .

200

General Mach Discussion / Re: Power Supply(s)

« on: August 23, 2008, 01:10:54 PM »

I am pretty sure in a discussion I had with Maurice at Gecko a few years ago he mentioned there was no problem  running dc brush type servos at 50% or so higher voltage than the motor rating, something to do with the way the amplifiers work , I know a couple of machines I have worked on in the past (mold handling equip) have had 90vdc motors working with 170+- vdc power supplies.

I know the old bridgeport I am working with came fitted with Reliant 90vdc motors and the original power supply is 177vdc.
I know very little about dc servos and power supplys beyond the basic wiring , just passing along past exp